However you voted, it's time to root for Silva

Anthony Silva sat in the customary candidates' seat at the end of a long table in a conference room at The Record.

Mike Klocke

Anthony Silva sat in the customary candidates' seat at the end of a long table in a conference room at The Record.

He'd been in this hot seat a number of times, speaking to our editorial board while running for a plethora of offices over the past decade.

Silva gave a mini-shrug that day and conveyed what he perceived as the futile nature of his visit.

"You didn't endorse me for when I ran for the Stockton Unified board," Silva said. "You didn't endorse me when I ran for (San Joaquin County) supervisor. You didn't endorse me when I ran in Lodi Unified.

"I don't really expect that you're going to endorse me now that I'm running for (Stockton) mayor. But I'm here again. And I hope you'll look at how I've changed over the years."

Quite frankly, Silva has changed. No, he's not the most mature 38-year-old you're ever going to run into. Baggage? Yes, he has a lot of it over the years. Much of it self-inflicted.

But through all of that, do you know what we have today?

Anthony Silva, mayor-elect of Stockton.

Silva pulled off the political stunner of political stunners, dispatching incumbent mayor and 12-year veteran of the Stockton City Council Ann Johnston in startling fashion.

This wasn't just a win. It was a rout. A laugher. A blowout. A landslide.

Ultimately, it also was an edict from voters. When the totals are 58 to 42 percent, that's your prototypical mandate for change.

Unhappiness with the old. Willing to try to the new. The voters of Stockton spoke loudly.

When the city is bankrupt, swimming in foreclosures, hamstrung by unemployment and riddled with unbelievable crime, it's not particularly difficult for a challenger to throw darts at an incumbent.

Silva fired away. Relentlessly. It worked. Like the proverbial charm.

Johnston had captured 40.8 percent of the vote in the June primary to only 21.4 for Silva. She'd doubled him up. A crowded field of candidates - Jimmy Rishwain claimed 15 percent and Ralph Lee White 11.5 percent - is probably all that kept Johnston from wrapping things up in June (50 percent or more majority would have done that).

I'm convinced that crime - more so than bankruptcy - ultimately was the undoing of Johnston. She proudly trumpeted in her campaign fliers that she'd stood up to public-safety unions and controlled heretofore out-of-control expenses.

But the murders continued. A flurry of them just a couple weeks in advance of the election spiked the fears of a community.

Meanwhile, that ballyhooed Marshall Plan of the mayor's seemed to be creeping at a relative snail's pace.

The voters responded in kind - or not so kind if you're Johnston. Silva rode a wave of discontent to victory.

Now comes a second difficult challenge: leading us out of the abyss.

I can't speak for the rest of our editorial board, but there was somewhat of a strange feeling that emanated from Silva during our meeting in September.

He had changed from some of our previous get-togethers - appreciably in some ways, incrementally in others.

Specifically, he was more self-effacing and less pompous. He was more self-critical and less cocksure. Silva was, frankly, more mature than I've ever seen him.

What does that mean for Stockton? Who the heck knows?

We don't know how Silva is going to act and govern with this new position, this new power, this new responsibility.

While the previous council had blended in nearly lock-step unison - 6 against 1, with Dale Fritchen as the holdout - Silva will be one of four new people on this governing body. Two other incumbents lost and another will depart for the state Assembly.

The leadership mantle is passed to Anthony Silva.

Don't hope that he will fail. Root for him to succeed. Help him to succeed.